Martianus Capella’s De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii and some additional material.

Leiden, UB, BPL 88

Date: third quarter of the 9th century

Place of origin: North France, in part probably Reims

Parchment manuscript, 182 folia, 255 x 232 mm, Carolingian minuscule, Latin.

Contents: Martianus Capella’s De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii and some additional material.

Special features: around the text of Martianus, a large commentary has been copied in several hands. In the last part of Martianus’ encyclopaedia, the book on music, an insular hand added commentary material. The hand has been identified as that of the assistant of the Irish scholar John the Scot Eriugena, who was connected to the court of the Carolingian King Charles the Bald, and at his invitation head of the Palace school at Aachen from 844 on. This suggests that the deeply secular kind of scholarship that characterizes Martianus’ work was part of the Carolingian intellectual ideal.

Martianus Capella and his allegorical encyclopaedia

Martianus Capella is an author from Carthago, North Arfica, in the 5th century, a province of the Roman empire until the Vandals took over in 439 AD. Only one of his works survived: a work titled De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, “About the marriage of Philology and Mercury”. In this work, the story is told about the god Mercury marrying the earthly maiden Philology, a personification of earthly knowledge and science. In this allegory, Mercury stands for the body of knowledge connected to language, or the trivium, Philology for the body of knowledge connected to number, or the quadrivium. Together, the couple personifies perfect knowledge. In the story, the couple receives a curious gift from the gods to celebrate their marriage: seven maidens come to present their knowledge at the banquet. The maidens are personifications of the seven Liberal Arts, the arts of the trivium and of the quadrivium. Grammar, Rhetoric and Dialectic are the three arts of language, Geometry, Arithmetic, Astronomy and Music are the four arts of number. For this exhibition, the author Martianus is crucial because he is one of the most important medieval sources for the establishment of the curriculum of the Seven Liberal Arts. Furthermore, especially his treatment of the art of Dialectic was elaborately commented upon.

On the right, you see the opening of the text of Martianus Capella’s De nuptiis in the ninth century script. On the left, on the page that was originally blank, a hand entered additional material on Martianus Capella and his work in the eleventh century, and added a couple of lines from De nuptiis with musical notation above it. A second hand added a Greek alphabet with the names of the letters and their numerical values. A third, even later hand added a note of ownership to the manuscript, giving it a place in the Abbey of Saint Peter in Ghent.

The refrain ‘Scande caeli templa’ (‘Ascend into the temples of heaven’) has a melody over it, in an early music notation called neumes. The neumes indicate the contours of the melody (rising, falling), but not the precise melody (see green box). In the red box we see a Greek alphabet, in small and capital letters, the names of the letters underneath each letter (alpha, beta, gamma …), and numerical values of each letter (1, 2, 3, …) In the yellow box we see a note of ownership and a protective curse:

‘Liber sancti petri gandensis ecclesie. Servanti benedictio, tollenti maledictio. Qui folium ex eo tulerit vel curtaverit, anathema sit. ‘Book of the church of Saint Peter of Ghent. A blessing to the keeper, a curse to the thief. May he who took or cut a folium from it be damned.’

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On the flyleaves preceding the text of Martianus Capella’s De nuptiis, more additional material was added in Gent in the eleventh century: a set of simple diagrams which illustrate the method of creating oppositions, contradictions, negations. This material is not taken from Martianus Capella’s text, but added to it to provide means to understand the art of dialectic better and perhaps practice with it. See diagrams, schemes and syllogism.

An example of a square of opposition (see green box) to build logical arguments:

A general universal confirmation: ‘Every man is just’ is put in opposition to a general universal negation: ‘No man is just’. Underneath a particular confirmation is illustrated: ‘A particular man is just’, and a particular negation: ‘A particular man in not just’. And so each set of terms is illustrated with the diagram and an example.

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In the red box the abstract example is given a concrete illustration:

‘(Every) man is white’ is put in opposition to ‘not (every) man is white’

The correct terminology for the relation between the statements (here: CONTRADICTIO) is highlighted in capital letters.

In the ninth century part of the manuscript, we see several hands, distinguishable because of the different colours of ink and subtle differences in their writing style, adding notes. Here in close-up (f. 4v) we have the note on ‘endelichia’ or ‘entelechy’, an ancient Greek philosophical concept for that which makes the difference between mere matter and a living body. Note how the commentator lines up all the different authorities on this concept! (see Glosses and commentaries)

Text in the green box: ‘According to Calcidius, entelechy is perfecta aetas, completed lifetime. According to Aristotle, it is interpreted as absolute perfection. Plato, on the other hand, says that entelechy is the anima mundi, the soul of the world.’

This is the opening of the book on Dialectic (f. 59r). We see a mix of hands working in different colours of ink: a very light ink and a darker one. They both use a nice set of tie-marks, which function as note numbers to tie the marginal text to the proper word or passage in the main text. (see Glosses and commentaries) ±f±bpl88_59_r±f±

In the chapter on music in De nuptiis, a new glossing hand appears. It is the hand of the assistant of the ninth-century philosopher John Scottus Eriugena, whom we know by the prosaic name of I², or the less prosaic, modern nickname Nisifortinus (Unless perhaps…). He is known for his mitigating tone of writing when presenting his master’s controversial ideas. The hand, with Irish traits, copies long glosses into this book on music, bringing together learning found in Boethius and Augustine and comparing it to Martianus’s text. He has a strong focus on Greek vocabulary and myth. (See±a± 2js±a±)

Here, in a close-up of f. 171r, we see a short gloss explaining a bit of mythology that is at the background of Martianus’s story: ‘This touches a fable. For Jupiter was in love with Diana and slept with her. As a price he gave her the power of nightly light, which she can let grow and diminish with her golden horns.’

Here, in a close-up of f. 172v, we see a short gloss on Aristoxenus: it explains the meaning of his name:

‘Aristoxenus, or ‘virtus acuta’, sharp excellence or ‘virtus perigrina’, foreign excellence. For ‘aris’ is ‘excellence’, and ‘oxenos’ is either from that which is ‘oxos’, that is ‘sharp’, or from that which is ‘xenos’, that is ‘foreign’.